Sunday 13 September
Things came together at the right time the other day. Twice. And both had a trumpet as a common feature. Actually, Haydn’s trumpet concerto in E Flat. A piece written in 1796 to showcase the technological creation that was the three-valved trumpet.
The right tune at the right moment is always a sublime thing when it happens. When I was a teenage-kid, The Beach Boys on Porthtown beach with my school friends. Black Grape with my mates at the Reading 5’s football tournament in my early twenties. Then, there was Gabriel’s Oboe by Enio Morricone when Dad drove me back to University in Derby across a snow dusted Peak District. A galloping Red Deer ran alongside us to mark that special moment out as super-special, Really neck-tingling that one.
Now, I’m no classical music authority but I know the music I like and I am genuinely moved by many pieces. Handel raises my spirits, Mozart generally brings a smile to my face and is quite playful (except his requiem of course) and I look to Beethoven and Sibelius for some drama.
But this particular concerto by Haydn, and the third movement specifically, has been a worm in my ear since Wednesday morning. I was driving to work with the radio on, the delicate trumpet blowing its fluttery notes in to the cockpit of my car. Then in the corner of my eye a flash of brown as a Red Kite sped past, alongside me then over the roof and away.
Before I could get the verbal exclamation out, I maneuvered around the bend in the lanes to be greeted by early-morning September sunshine facing me straight ahead. And Haydn played on. Sheer joy.
Then yesterday, at various points alongside the River Orwell, the same melody kept popping into my head. I felt compelled to hum, whistle or even lip-trumpet it out of the corner of my mouth. A skill I am particularly proud of.
It worked as the perfect soundtrack to anything I saw that inspired or simply looked beautiful. Usually a land panorama or water-scape view. The trumpet sings in duet with the rest of the orchestra and chucks out butterfly-wing notes seemingly for fun. So fitting for a morning walk on a sunny weekend in late summer.
The Bald Birder 